Tag: self-identity

#oneaday Day 752: I Love You, Rin

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This is the fifth (and possibly final… maybe) of several posts regarding the notorious amateur-developed visual novel Katawa Shoujo. If you are intending to play this game and proceed down the “Rin” path and would like to avoid spoilers, I recommend you skip this post. I’ve even put the spoilery discussion below the break. Aren’t I nice?

If you’re still reading this, it’s highly likely you already know what Katawa Shoujo is but just in case you aren’t and/or you haven’t read the previous posts where I included this exact same paragraph, it’s a visual novel developed by 4 Leaf Studios, made up of members of the much- (and usually justifiably-) maligned 4chan community along with other itinerant creative types from around the Internet. It was developed following extended discussion over a sketch by Japanese doujinshi artist Raita, and is the very definition of a “labour of love”, having come from discussions on 4chan all the way to a full-fledged, professional-quality game between the years of 2007 and 2012. It’s been described by some as “eroge” or an erotic game, but I feel this does it an injustice; there are sexual scenes in the game, yes, but the point of the game is not to get to these scenes — rather, they are part of the plot, and not necessarily a “victory” for the player. They are also not terribly frequent compared to the rest of the game, which focuses on interpersonal interactions and psychological issues.

If you want to check out Katawa Shoujo for yourself, take a peek at the official website. My previous post regarding Emi’s path can be found here, and if you’re too lazy to scroll down, yesterday’s post on Shizune can be found here, the previous day’s post on Hanako can be found here, and the day before that’s post on Lilly can be found here. I’m at 96% completion as of tonight, with only a few scenes and endings left to clear up. In for a penny, in for a pound…

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#oneaday, Day 167: Introversion and Chaos

I’m an introvert. For many nerds, that comes with the territory. Enjoying the more cerebral pursuits that life has to offer often means enduring the ridicule of the “cool kids” who are into things like drinking, smoking and fighting. At least it did. As computers and the Internet have become more and more widespread over the years, there are certain things it’s more socially “acceptable” to do nowadays. Video games. Communicating online. That sort of thing.

But for nerds of a certain age such as myself, we grew up in a time when it was less socially acceptable to proclaim yourself a gamer. And this meant a certain degree of withdrawal, leading to introversion. This is a gross oversimplification, of course. But it’s a contributing factor in the whole shebang.

Introversion has its benefits. Being able to picture situations in your mind and mentally run through conversations is, at times, a useful skill to have. At other times, it’s a pain in the ass. Especially when you know there’s an important conversation you need to have. You end up thinking about all the things you know you really need and want to say, and then end up not saying any of them.

Sometimes you do say them, and the conversation you played out in your mind doesn’t go the way you expected it to. This can be good. Or it can be very bad. In my past experience, conversations I’ve “rehearsed” in my head are almost inevitably completely wrong by the time it comes to actually have them. This may be down to me not saying the things I thought I would. Or it may be a surprising reaction from the other person.

One thing’s for sure: there’s so much chaos in the world that it’s ridiculous to try and predict what will happen before it’s happened. When I think of things that have happened recently, there are a whole string of events which could have very easily not happened had I not made one particular choice.

One of my newest friends, for example. Had I not downloaded the Gowalla geotagging app for the iPhone, and had I not allowed a few random locals to add me as friends on it, and had I not looked at one of those locals’ profiles and found she had a Twitter page, and had I not followed her on Twitter, and had I not spoken to her on Twitter, and had I not gone to that first Tweetup I’d gone to, I wouldn’t be sitting on the sofa I’m currently sitting on writing this. That’s a peculiar thing to think about. It would have been so easy to miss any of those steps, and to think, missing one of those steps would have been an enormous life change. But they were little things; instinctive things. I didn’t rehearse them. I just did them. And things turned out pretty well there.

There’s a lesson to be learned in this somewhere, I’m sure. Be more impulsive? Say what you mean? Grow a pair?

Yep. All of those things. I’m working on it.